AT H L E T I C S
‘FIND SOMETHING POSITIVE’ With his surprise bestseller, Hatter Chancellor Jackson ’18 turns overseas incarceration into inspiration at home. BY M I C H A E L C A N D E L A R I A
Chancellor Jackson, author of “14 Days in Beijing”
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ou won’t get the full book story here. That would be too much of a giveaway. But you will get the backstory, which is similarly rich with inspiration.
Chancellor Jackson ’18 has gone from growing up in Smyrna, Georgia, the product of Native American parents, to playing football at Stetson while earning a communications and media studies degree. Jackson battled long odds each step of the way to reach today — as a bestselling book author. His first book, “14 Days in Beijing” (ISBN-13: 9798628879832), was Amazon’s No. 1 seller in American Dramas & Plays, Asian Dramas & Plays and Teens & Young Adult Biography eBooks. Also, it was top 20 in multiple genres and ranked No. 76 on Amazon’s top 100 bestsellers list, even before its official debut in April 2020. Oh, and while teaching English overseas as his first career job, Jackson was imprisoned in China, hence the title of his book.
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“You gotta read the story!” Jackson, with a laugh, would only say in January. “It’s a story of my experience within those last 14 days. It’s a lot of lessons, a lot of different messages. It’s an incredible story, honestly.” For Jackson, the journey has been incredible, too, in many ways. Let’s pick things up following the Hatters football season in the Fall 2017 Semester, when Jackson began applying for “corporate-type jobs.” His thinking at the time: “Stetson is a prestigious school. I should be able to land a job in corporate somewhere.” Eight months later, it still hadn’t happened, although Jackson was flown to some interviews, including with Amazon and Fujifilm. So, he broadened his search and, finally, found an opportunity. A switch on his LinkedIn job search to “international” unveiled “teaching abroad.” The positions required college graduation and a native English speaker with a clean background. He clicked to apply and “went about my business.” A few days later, he had an interview set up, and shortly thereafter he was told his application was moving forward. “I was shocked; I was at a loss for words,” Jackson remembered. “After eight months of applying and all of the people who told me ‘no,’ the first job that told me ‘yes’ was on the other side of the world. I thought, ‘Chance, this is what you’re supposed to be doing.’ I wanted to do something big after graduation from college. I said, ‘This is it.’” With five days to decide, he talked to his family in Georgia and took the job, teaching children English as a foreign language, students ages 3 to 14 in China. Jackson departed for Beijing on Oct. 10, 2018. And he got locked up on April 4, 2019. Later that month, he was back home, but not before those 14 days.
